


Drinking Buddies

by remembertowrite



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Drunk!Alex, Drunk!Strand, F/M, Fluff, but still fun, not my deepest work for sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 08:12:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5998351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembertowrite/pseuds/remembertowrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three drinks in, alcohol had gifted her with an impatience in all matters Strand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinking Buddies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [Tumblr](http://remembertowrite.tumblr.com/post/139145511438/quick-tbtp-fic) on 2/11/16.

She giggled. She couldn’t feel her face. Her college self was ashamed of her - couldn’t feel anything after only three drinks.

To be fair, the first cocktail was strong. She felt like she needed to let loose, just a little. Too much stress these past nine months. Fucking demons and creepy ass geometry and stuff. It was overwhelming. All she’d wanted to do was profile some interesting people through the lens of an interesting occupation. She should’ve known when she stumbled across Dr. Strand that it’s be more than a two-episode affair.

The man had an air of mystery about him that was too enticing to ignore. It was like finding her college roommate’s chocolate ice cream in the freezer and being tempted to steal a little: unwise to partake in, but ultimately irresistible. She cherished chocolate like a baby blanket.

So she was generally a happy person after she’d imbibed three alcoholic cocktails. She felt a little like her 16-year-old self, sneaking whiskey from her father’s hip flask stored in his hunting gear. He’d kept it in his closet, to keep it safe from the miserable Canadian winter temperatures. And she’d read him like a book: she knew exactly where he’d hide it.

Drunk Strand was just a further extension of what she observed as his generally miserable self: scowl on face, elitist aura slicing through the amicable air of the bar.

“Alex,” he slurred, and she reacted visibly. He rarely ever referred to her by first name. It felt oddly intimate when he did.

“Yes?” she responded, half amused, half curious, fully brave from her liquid courage. She’d challenge him tonight, more aggressively than she the peacemaker would normally. Alcohol gifted her with an impatience in all matters Strand.

“I’m thinking I should turn in.”

“Don’t be so - so Strand-like,” she laughed, self-amused at the term that had come to define the intangible qualities of wet blanketness among her and Nic and the interns.

Stand took offense at that. “I’m not Strand-like,” he moaned.

Alex chortled hysterically and it took Strand a full minute to figure out what she was losing her cool about.

“Hey - wait - you’re seeing things, you have -”

“Apophenia?” Alex filled in for him, halfway through her fourth cocktail and fully her way through to finding the hilarity of the situation. She found him hysterically funny, and mocked him openly to vent her frustration at the many, many times she couldn’t deny he was right. It was refreshing, to tease him and fire full rounds at his ego like this.

“Journalists are good at observing things, Richard,” she said conversationally, as if he were Nic or her brother or some other man who held no sway over her or her career. “You can’t deny what I see.”

His face twisted in a painfully hilarious fashion. Alex reveled in the schadenfreude. It was so gratifying to make Strand squirm, especially when she lowered him to her level by addressing him by his first name.

“You’re ridiculous,” Strand answered, and seemed to melt into himself, seemed to make a move for the coat rack

“Oh no you don’t!” Alex half-shouted in her buzzed stupor, grabbing the unhumanly tall man by the elbow (she referred to him the rest of the night as ‘Bigfoot’ in her thoughts).

He glanced back at her, pain laced around his eyes, his stern lip turned sad.

“It’s the first time in months that you’ve been my _friend_ ,” she said simply, and the intimacy and acceptance and everything else it implied seemed to floor the giant Strand (except he didn’t literally fall to the floor). “Please stay,” she added, her fingers hot and sensual around his arm.

He nodded in accordance, and Alex wasn’t sure if she could attribute the flush on his face and neck to insubordination or embarrassment or affection. She hoped for the best, keeping an eye on him; so Strand didn’t leave her side all night.

###

When Strand awakes, his whole body turns red with the mortification of impropriety: a very noticeably unclothed Alex rests her head on his chest. His very bare chest.

He reacts the only appropriate way: “Holy shit.”


End file.
